You're the Worst 5.8: " The Pillars of Creation"

Chris: I don't even know where to start with this episode. On one hand, I could use a break on the main storyline with Jimmy and Gretchen. On the other hand, this episode really does come out of the blue and feels apropos of nothing. This hasn't felt like the final season of a show that is trying to get things done but instead feels like it's stalling. Show likes to jump from zero to 60 but Paul, Vernon, and Becca having a close relationship just doesn't feel like it fits with anything we've seen in the previous episodes. And even if they do have a close relationship now, all of this is only happening so that Vernon and Becca can still get paid for the whole surrogacy thing. This episode would make more sense if the outcome was a ploy by Vernon and Becca rather than three of them having actual feelings as the ending alludes to.

Alexa: I didn’t need a Paul and Vernon bottle episode back in season three, and I certainly didn’t need another one (plus Becca this time) in the final stretch of the show’s run. I know the writers needed to resolve the whole surrogate storyline before the end of the season, but a B-story in another episode would have been a more effective way to handle that. This episode just took what little screen time we have left away from other characters like Lindsay and Edgar, who have been woefully underused so far this season. Paul, Vernon and Becca have never had as much depth as the main foursome. They are truly there in a supporting capacity, and the very end of the show seems like an odd time to decide they need several seasons’ worth of character development crammed into one episode. I completely agree with Joel that this notion that the three of them have some special bond comes out of nowhere. Paul and Vernon have always been friendly but never has any kind of connection existed between Paul and Becca. Now we’re not only asked to accept that the three of them are close on some level, but that they have grown tremendously as characters throughout the show’s run when we have never seen that from these three until this episode. Dedicating an entire half hour to them at this juncture doesn’t feel earned. One of the only moments that does feel genuine is when Vernon faces his botched surgery when he fails at a game of knock-off Operation. That storyline certainly warrants follow-up, but again, it could have been incorporated as a side story in a different episode.

Joel: Ever since season two, we’ve had this “side storyline” episode each season. I wasn’t sure if the unorthodox season premiere was going to count as the fifth seasons “side story” episode, but apparently, it’s going to be this one. And I think this might be the best example of how this kind of episode can completely fail.

The reason that LCD Soundsystem worked was because so much of it surrounded a set of characters that we hadn't seen before. The episode had to operate with the understanding that these were characters who the audience didn’t know anything about. The episode was built around us gradually learning who these people were. Much in the same way, “Not a Great Bet” (the episode where Gretchen goes home) mostly works, because we’re learning things as the story unfolds. Like Gretchen, we’re in unfamiliar territory that we learn more about over the course of the episode. This episode however, focuses on three characters who we’ve known since season one. And while they’re not the main four characters, they’re not exactly minor characters in the show at this point. We’re going into this episode knowing who these people are, what their hopes and dreams are, what they think about each other, their outlook on life, pretty much anything you would know about a character on any long running tv show. Which is why it’s so glaring that none of this makes sense.

Why are these three characters going on a getaway together? Paul says that he couldn’t imagine being there with anyone else, but where does that come from? Other than one episode where Paul seemed to bond with Vernon, they aren’t close. Their relationships exist through Lindsay, and they’ve never hinted at exploring any stronger relationship beyond that. For a while it looks like Paul is using the pretense of a getaway to get Becca and Vernon to admit they’re not really trying to get pregnant. We even get that scene where he slyly refers to her womb as geriatric and it works out great, but that clashes with this idea just a few scenes later that Paul genuinely cares about these people and wants them in his life beyond their ability to give him a child.

Maybe we’re supposed to get the feeling that a relationship has developed between the three characters off screen while we were focused on Jimmy and Gretchen. After all, these three characters have been pretty much absent for this entire season minus a stray scene here or there. But to suggest that there has been character development that we need to catch up on conflicts with other scenes in this same episode, where all three characters seem to be stuck in the same state of arrested development that we left them in at the end of last season. There has been no emotional growth for any character and then it feels like the whole episode comes to what is meant to be an emotional payoff for something that never had any buildup at any point. From the first season Vernon has been the character who has gone through the least amount of character development, essentially being the same person that he was by the second or third episode of the show. Vernon has been one of the characters who was more aware of their personality flaws than others, but he also seems to be fine with the person he is. He’ll acknowledge that he’s messed up, or that something is his fault, but he rolls with it. Becca also has had very little character growth over the show’s five seasons. We got a tiny bit of growth in the last season concerning her relationship with Lindsay, but it’s clear from the first half of this episode that she’s still the same unlikable character she’s aways. For the character development to work in this episode, you have to believe that the the characters who have been the most static since the beginning of the show, suddenly did all of the character growth off screen with each other over the previous handful of episodes.

Look, I know that You’re the Worst likes to take unconventional relationships and present them as genuine possible alternatives to the traditional romantic couple. For example, Lindsay and Edgar were able to have a genuine “friends with benefits” relationship that was heathty for both people and where it didn’t ever turn into a romantic relationship, something you pretty much never see. It looks like they wanted to do the same thing with a polyamorous relationship, which in and of itself is not a bad idea for this show to tackle, but it doesn’t work with these characters. Far too often, Paul, Vernon, and Becca, end up existing only to be some specific “worst” type of person that the show wants to make fun of. Remember Becca chanting “lock her up” with her gay best friend, only for the chanting and the friend to vanish? Remember Paul showing up as a Men’s Rights Activist with pretty much no explanation, and then drop the entire thing and revert back to the exact version of Paul he’s been this whole time? Now this new relationship feels just as tacked on to these characters as they float in and out of whatever stereotype fits best for the moment.  As the series has grown to focus more on the trials of Jimmy and Gretchen’s relationship, it’s not focused as much on these side characters and it’s run out of things for them to do. These three characters who all had motivation and purpose for the first few seasons, have been aimlessly floating along for a while now, and though it was noticeable that they had been on screen less recently, it became glaringly obvious when we get a whole episode focused on just these three and the show can’t decide exactly who the characters are anymore.